‘Hey you,’ Amanda said warmly, coming and sitting on the other end of the couch. ‘How’s things? You looked all lonely over here.’
I was simultaneously grateful and wanted to punch her. How dare she be able to just talk to people?
‘I’m okay,’ I said. ‘I’m just… this is so weird.’
‘So weird,’ she agreed. ‘It’s such a surreal situation, you know?’
As if to prove her point, someone from production (An assistant director? I couldn’t remember who had what job title…) swept down on us. ‘Amanda, I want you to say that again, but sit closer,’ she said. ‘We can’t get you both in frame.’
‘Sorry,’ Amanda said, obediently scooting closer to me on the couch. ‘I’m just so used to social distancing. It’s instinct now.’
‘Yes! Great! Say that!’ the AD said. ‘That’ll make a great grab for the ads. Rolling. In three—’
‘Wait!’ I said. ‘I don’t know what to say. What were we talking about?’
‘I’ve got it,’ Amanda said, patting me on the hand. ‘Just follow my lead, okay?’
Both my gratitude and my desire to punch her intensified.
Mercifully, before I had to do more than stammer a couple of single-syllable replies to Amanda’s full and eloquent sentences, we were summoned over to a different collection of couches and arranged by the crew. ‘No, you can’t sit next to her – your colours are too close,’ someone said to a white woman in a yellow dress who dared to sit near Lily. ‘It’ll look like you’re one person with two heads.’
‘How dare you wear my colour?’ Lily said. ‘Yellow is mine. Don’t ever do it again.’
‘Lily, stop being ridiculous,’ Other Dylan said. ‘You can’t claim a colour.’
‘Please address me by my full name,’ Lily said primly. ‘Lily Fireball.’
Other Dylan snorted. ‘I am not fucking calling you Lily Fireball. What kind of influencer bullshit is that?’
‘Save it for later, ladies, and remember not to swear,’ Steve said. ‘We’re going to bring Z out now, all right? Make sure you cheer! We need to keep the energy high.’
I had never been less in touch with my energy. Was I exhausted? Was I more awake than I had ever been? The last time I’d even vaguely felt this way was when I pulled an all-nighter studying for exams in undergrad and downed four espresso shots in fifteen minutes the next morning to get through my café shift.
‘Hello, Juliets!’
‘Oh my God, it’s Z!’ one of the other women yelled.
We all cheered. My hands were shaking just as badly as they had been that morning after the four espresso shots, when I’d felt like I could see through space and time.
Every year, when Flick and Ayo and I had ourMarry Me, Julietfinale watch parties, we decorated our flat with the little Tom Zelig cardboard cut-outs they put templates for on the official show website. They were all wearing different suits: there was floral Z, polka-dot Z, pinstripe Z, tuxedo Z, purple Z, red Z, every Z you could think of. ‘Which Z would you bang, if you had to choose one?’ Ayo had asked last year as she and Flick and I went around the flat setting them up for our Brett/CJ/Mary-Ellen party. ‘I like zigzag Z, personally. He seems like he wouldn’t take himself too seriously in bed.’
‘Welcome toMarry Me, Juliet,’ Z said. ‘I’m your host TomZelig, and it’s my absolute honour to be here right now with all of you on your journey to find true love.’
To me, this man was a cardboard cut-out, but now he was right in front of me.
My fingers were sweaty around the stem of my champagne flute. I wiped them on the skirt of my dress. A second too late, I saw the camera trained directly on me.
My fingers immediately got sweaty again.
‘Obviously, we’re all living in tough times right now,’ Z went on. His voice dropped in volume, and the boom guy moved the mic closer. ‘The pandemic has changed everything, and it’s made it a lot harder to look for love. But we hope that here, onMarry Me, Juliet, we can help two people find their forever love story, one that will bring hope to the nation at a time when we need hope more than anything.’
Oh God. What if I somehow pulled this off and conned Dylan the Romeo into liking me, but then the audience didn’t? What if I made it to the end and we ended up together, but then it turned out the whole country hated me and thought he should have picked someone else, like with Brett and CJ? I’d be letting everyone down and making everyone feel bad and there wouldn’t be a lot of influencer money in being the nation’s worst enemy and—come on, Cece, breathe.
I took a swig of my drink. It helped. Only the tiniest bit, but still.
‘So, here he is!’ Z said. ‘Olympic gold medallist in sailing…’
So not a TV gardener then. Phew.
